On 04/25/2017 12:05 PM, Lukáš Doktor wrote:
> Dne 20.4.2017 v 03:42 Cleber Rosa napsal(a):
>> Hi Folks.
>>
> Hello Cleber,
>
> thank you for the updates, in general it's good, I have few minor
> suggestions in-line.
>
>> This RFC contains proposals and clarifications regarding the
>> maintenance and release processes of Avocado.
>>
>> We understand there are multiple teams currently depending on the
>> stability of Avocado and we don't want their work to be disrupted by
>> incompatibilities nor instabilities in new releases.
>>
>> This version is a minor update to RFC version 2[1], which drove the
>> release of Avocado 36.0 LTS. The Avocado team has plans for a new LTS
>> release in the near future, so please consider reading and providing
>> feedback on the proposals here.
>>
>> TL;DR:
>>
>> We plan to keep the current approach of sprint releases every 3-4
>> weeks, but we're introducing "Long Term Stability" releases which
>> should be adopted in production environments where users can't keep
>> up with frequent upgrades.
>>
>> Changes from v2:
>> - Wording changes on second paragraph ("... nor instabilities...")
>> - Clarified on "Introduction" that change of behavior is introduced
>> between regular releases
>> - Updated distro versions for which official packages are built
>> - Add more clear explanation on official packages on the various
>> hardware platforms
>> - Used more recent version numbers as examples, and the planned
>> new LTS version too
>> - Explain how users can get the LTS version when using tools such as
>> pip
>> - Simplified the timeline example, with examples that will possibly
>> match the future versions and releases
>> - Documented current status of avocado-vt releases and packages
>>
>> Changes from v1:
>> - Changed "Support" to "Stability" and "supported" to "maintained"
>> [Jeff Nelson]
>> - Misc improvements and clarifications in the
>> supportability/stability statements [Jeff Nelson, me]
>> - Fixed a few typos [Jeff Nelson, me]
>>
>>
>> Introduction
>> --------------
>>
>> We make new releases of Avocado every 3-4 weeks on average. In theory
>> at least, we're very careful with backwards compatibility. We test
>> Avocado for regressions and we try to document any issues, so
>> upgrading to a new version should be (again, in theory) safe.
>>
>> But in practice both intended and unintended changes are introduced
>> during development, and both can be frustrating for conservative
>> users. We also understand it's not feasible for users to upgrade
>> Avocado very frequently in a production environment.
>>
>> The objective of this RFC is to clarify our maintenance practices and
>> introduce Long Term Stability (LTS) releases, which are intended to
>> solve, or at least mitigate, these problems.
>>
>>
>> Our definition of maintained, or stable
>> ---------------------------------------
>>
>> First of all, Avocado and its sub-projects are provided 'AS IS' and
>> WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, as described in the LICENSE file.
>>
>> The process described here doesn't imply any commitments or
>> promises. It's just a set of best practices and recommendations.
>>
>> When something is identified as "stable" or "maintained", it means the
>> development community makes a conscious effort to keep it working and
>> consider reports of bugs and issues as high priorities. Fixes
>> submitted for these issues will also be considered high priorities,
>> although they will be accepted only if they pass the general
>> acceptance criteria for new contributions (design, quality,
>> documentation, testing, etc), at the development team discretion.
>>
>>
>> Maintained projects and platforms
>> ---------------------------------
>>
>> The only maintained project as of today is the Avocado Test Runner,
>> including its APIs and core plugins (the contents of the main avocado
>> git repository).
>>
>> Other projects kept under the "Avocado Umbrella" in github may be
>> maintained by different teams (e.g.: avocado-vt) or be considered
>> experimental (e.g.: avocado-server and avocado-virt).
>>
>> More about avocado-vt in its own section further down.
>>
>> As a general rule, fixes and bug reports for Avocado when running in
>> any modern Linux distribution are welcome.
>>
>> But given the limited capacity of the development team, packaged
>> versions of Avocado will be tested and maintained only for the
>> following Linux distributions:
>>
>> * RHEL 7.x (latest)
>> * Fedora (stable releases from the Fedora projects)
>>
>> Currently all packages produced by the Avocado projects are "noarch".
>> That means that they could be installable on any hardware platform.
>> Still, the development team will currently attempt to provide versions
>> that are stable for the following platforms:
>>
>> * x86
>> * ppc64
> Do we still care about ppc64 BE? And how about the widely spreading
> aarch64, do we want to include it?
> Honestly, I can't properly answer that. Jeff, can you help us here? >> * ppc64le >> >> Contributions from the community to maintain other platforms and >> operating systems are very welcome. >> >> The lists above may change without prior notice. >> >> >> Avocado Releases >> ---------------- >> >> The proposal is to have two different types of Avocado releases: >> >> 1. Sprint Releases: >> (This is the model we currently adopt in Avocado) >> >> They happen every 3-4 weeks (the schedule is not fixed) and >> their versions are numbered serially, with decimal digits in >> the format <major>.<minor>. Examples: 47.0, 48.0, 49.0. Minor >> releases are rare, but necessary to correct some major issue >> with the original release (47.1, 47.2, etc). >> >> Only the latest Sprint Release is maintained. >> >> In Sprint Releases we make a conscious effort to keep backwards >> compatibility with the previous version (APIs and behavior) and >> as a general rule and best practice, incompatible changes in >> Sprint Releases should be documented in the release notes and >> if possible deprecated slowly, to give users time to adapt >> their environments. >> >> But we understand changes are inevitable as the software >> evolves and therefore there's no absolute promise for API and >> behavioral stability. >> >> 2. Long Term Stability (LTS) Releases: >> >> LTS releases should happen whenever the team feels the code is >> stable enough to be maintained for a longer period of time, ideally >> once or twice per year (no fixed schedule). >> >> They should be maintained for 18 months, receiving fixes for major >> bugs in the form of minor (sub-)releases. With the exception of >> these fixes, no API or behavior should change in a minor LTS >> release. >> >> They will be versioned just like Sprint Releases, so looking at the >> version number alone will not reveal the differentiate release >> process and stability characteristics. >> >> In practice each major LTS release will imply in the creation of a >> git branch where only serious issues affecting users will be >> fixed. The code in a LTS branch is stable, frozen for new features. >> >> Notice that although within a LTS release there's a expectation >> of stability because the code is frozen, different (major) LTS >> releases may include changes in behavior, API incompatibilities >> and new features. The development team will make a considerable >> effort to minimize and properly document these changes (changes >> when comparing it to the last major LTS release). >> >> Sprint Releases are replaced by LTS releases. I.e., in the cycle >> when 52.0 (LTS) is released, that's also the version used as a >> Sprint Release (there's no 52.0 -- non LTS -- in this case). >> >> New LTS releases should be done carefully, with ample time for >> announcements, testing and documentation. It's recommended >> that one or two sprints are dedicated as preparations for a LTS >> release, with a Sprint Release serving as a "LTS beta" release. >> >> Similarly, there should be announcements about the end-of-life >> (EOL) of a LTS release once it approaches its 18 months of >> life. >> >> >> Misc details > How about calling this section deployment details? > Good idea. >> ------------ >> >> Sprint and LTS releases, when packaged, whenever possible, will be >> preferably distributed through different package channels >> (repositories). >> >> This is possible for repository types such as YUM/DNF repos[2]. In >> such cases, users can disable the regular channel, and enable the LTS >> version. A request for the installation of Avocado packages will >> fetch the latest version available in the enabled repository. If the >> LTS repository channel is enabled, the packages will receive minor >> updates (bugfixes only), until a new LTS version is released (roughly >> every 12 months). >> >> If the non-LTS channel is enabled, users will receive updates every >> 3-4 weeks. >> >> On other types of repos such as PyPI[3] which have no concept of >> "sub-repos" or "channels", users can request a version smaller than >> the version that succeeds the current LTS to get the latest LTS >> (including minor releases). Suppose the current LTS major version is >> 52, but there have been minor releases 52.1 and 52.2. By running: >> >> $ pip install 'avocado-framework<53.0' >> >> pip provide LTS version 52.2. If 52.3 gets released, they will be >> automatically deployed instead. When a new LTS is released, users >> would still get the latest minor release from the 52.0 series, unless >> they update the version specification. >> >> The existence of LTS releases should never be used as an excuse >> to break a Sprint Release or to introduce gratuitous >> incompatibilities there. In other words, Sprint Releases should >> still be taken seriously, just as they are today. >> >> >> Timeline example >> ---------------- >> >> Assume each sprint is taking 3 weeks. Notice how multiple LTS >> releases can co-exist before EOL. >> > It should start with: > > LTS release 36.0 (previous LTS release) > ... > Good point. >> sprint release 49.0 >> sprint release 50.0 >> --> start preparing a LTS release, so 51.0 is a beta LTS >> sprint release 51.0 >> LTS release 52.0 (52lts branch is created, packages go into LTS repo) >> sprint release 53.0 >> --> bug that also affects 52.0 is found, fix gets added to >> master and 52lts branches >> sprint release 54.0 + LTS 52.1 >> --> bug that also affects 52.0 is found, fix gets added to > it affects 52.1 > > Also I'd mention that it was a minor bug (as we did not bother releasing > a new version not even when new sprint was released. > Yep, good point. Thanks for the feedback, - Cleber. -- Cleber Rosa [ Sr Software Engineer - Virtualization Team - Red Hat ] [ Avocado Test Framework - avocado-framework.github.io ] [ 7ABB 96EB 8B46 B94D 5E0F E9BB 657E 8D33 A5F2 09F3 ]
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